Just Deserts
by Darkened-Shard
Summary: It's a long road to the Vault, especially if your forced to work together with three other individuals. Learning to work together without killing one another is one thing. Learning about each other is another. A five-part journey to the Vault; friendship, potential romance and visual learning, ahoy!


**A/N**: Quick note before my rambling, it is Just Deserts, not Just Desserts. FYI. Thanks. :)

So, I wrote this story before Borderlands 2 came out, but hadn't really worked out the kinks or anything the first time around. Not much to say about this except this was inspired by my playthrough of the first and second game and the characterization of the first characters along with the second set of characters. :) I am proud to say there wasn't much editing to be had except for the change of Bloodwing's gender from male to female. (In the first game, Bloodwing was constantly called boy and he. In the second, he is now a she, hurrah!) I based my Mordecai off of the first, along with the research I put in to finding out about his past.

This story was planned to have more than one chapter, but! It may not. Check for updates and hope for the best. AND please review my story, I would enjoy that thoroughly. Thanks and enjoy~

**Second Wind**

Bleeding, he was bleeding to death in a dark, dank hole carved out of the side of a sheer cliff. He watched his life tick away on his ECHO, slowly inching towards the skull at the end. How cliché.

He blinked steadying the pistol in his hands, and focusing with a little difficulty on his surroundings as a gruff bark emitted from the outside. Suddenly, he remembered just why he was in this dank, stinking hole in the first place. Skags were nearby. They had picked up the scent of the dying man.

Of course, the beasts that were too hasty to wait for his true death were lying upon the entrance to the cave in a considerable, bloody heap. They had been persistent, but apparently had learned to wait. After all, it was only a matter of time...

He gritted his teeth as his grip on the gun lessened. It was getting harder to keep a strong hold on the damned thing. A frown appeared on the only uncovered part of his face besides his ears and tied hair. His eyes narrowed beneath the red-lensed goggles as he recounted how he ended up in a stinking hole, slowly dying alone.

It had had happened so fast, his three other companions and himself were near a cliff, leaving Skag Gully after defeating Nine Toes and his "_pets_." The group, mainly Brick, had disturbed a nesting place for rakk. The bat-like creatures flew out in droves causing their group to retreat unbeknownst into a den-site of skags as well.

Though, the Hunter wouldn't admit it was he who had caused the skags to attack, naturally, he was the furthest back providing coverfire for the others. He winced as he remembered the claws digging into him, knocking him off his feet as the first one attacked.

He had to save himself with a quick, lucky jab of his blade into the creature's mouth. It seemed more like a free-for-all between their team than actual cooperation and all that "watching each others' backs" bullshit. Obviously, he had warned them and maneuvered himself so that the more direct, close-up fighters could take on the now two front-lines.

Brick let out a roar as he rushed towards the skags, he seemed to excel against the beasts, as he naturally liked the gore he could get from them instead of the flying rakks.

Roland and his sentry focused on the rakks with a systematic efficiency. With Lilith providing cover fire, they seemed to have things under control.

He himself focused on the skags that had downed his shield and left him vulnerable, Brick could only deal with so many at once despite the hulking man's "take on the whole world with his fists" attitude.

Seriously, he should have seen it coming. Roland, Lilith and Brick were so focused on their enemy, stupidly trusting that the others had their back or just not caring at all. A skag had escaped Brick's narrow attention. The beast infiltrated their front line and saw its opportunity in the turned backs of the other two.

He had seen it out of the corner of his eye and called out through his ECHO to the skag's target. "Lilith, behind you!" Without skipping a beat, he sent out his winged companion from her cage and took aim at the beast.

The bird managed to hit the skag with such intensity and speed, it caused the split-jawed, armored dog to stagger. It gave him enough of a chance to finish the beast with a well placed shot, moments before Lilith had time to properly react. He smirked a little at a job well done. "Get'em Blood!" He cheered, pride welling up as the bird took on another target.

"Mordecai, watch your ass!" Her voice reached him as a screaming beast slammed into him sending both him and his aggressor over the edge, a female voice screaming in his ear as he fell.

The fall had been great enough to take away the amount of shield that had recharged and then some. The skag did the rest of the work before he finally killed it. Wounded badly to the point that his shield wouldn't recharge, he managed to crawl into an empty skag den to hold up.

And here he was. Normally, the ECHO device would show the others where he was, and vice versa, but the impact must have damaged it to the point the others weren't even on his device at all. All he saw was his own life draining away, the maps, everything else, gone.

This caused him to think that he probably wasn't connected to the "NEW-U," meaning his death was most likely permanent.

Instead of fear, all he felt was a deep burning anger. He couldn't die! He never died! Especially without getting what he deserved, which was the best gun in the universe, all the money he would ever need and eternal glory, which he had been wrongfully cheated out of in that damned sharp shooting competition.

He gritted his teeth, growling a little in frustration. He had been stupid, very stupid. He was a hunter! The best shot in the known universe and a survivor. He had come to Pandora, this forsaken dustball for the goal of finding and claiming the vault. On the ride to his first destination, he had been fated to find three others with the same goal as him.

Being naturally a loner, he had been about to ditch them as soon as they got off in Fyrestone and away from their "guide" to the planet. He would surely find the vault before any of those chumps anyways.

However, nothing had worked out the way he had planned. Bandits had attacked and he was stuck fighting with the other vault hunters to the center of the "city," following their freaked out robotic "guide" through the horde.

They had cleared out the bandits, simple enough. He was about to leave them to it when SHE had appeared on all of their devices urging them to stay together if any of them wanted to find the vault. Now, he regretted listening, wishing angrily that he had parted ways as he had planned to do in the first place.

His "team" didn't know the first thing about working together besides Roland, the wanna-be commando. Not that he had much room to complain being so used to working alone, but here he was thanks to the teamwork he had shown. He was dying alone, his only true companion had been distracted fighting other targets and hadn't been able to return to him before his fall.

Strangely enough, the alien bird did have a knack for finding him despite where he was, which brought up concern and a question. Where was his faithful, leather-winged companion now?

Did his dying mean that the bird had abandoned him? No, he'd been in just as bad situations before and the bird had stayed by him the whole time. Was she dead? Unlikely, but…

Mordecai sighed, anger flowing out of him, replaced with a quiet acceptance. Blood loss must be getting to him, and he was feeling ages older than he should. He was going to die. Without a functioning ECHO device to show them where he was, he didn't see any other way out.

He closed his eyes, smirking rather bitterly. "Lady Luck, you've always been truly against me, haven't you?" He asked to no one in particular, feeling his body slowly becoming numb with blood loss.

A light breeze gently caressed his face causing his smirk to grow increasingly bitter. A little comfort before he died, eh?

Then the sound that accompanied the rip of dimensional boundaries startled him back to reality, as the shock waves stirred up dirt and shook the walls around him.

He stared into the feral colored eyes of the Siren crouched nearby with a small smirk of triumph on her lips and a raised brow. "Sup? You done lamenting your death yet?" She asked with cocky lilt.

His eyes narrowed, the shock turning slightly into irritation, partially wondering if he was hallucinating now. Instead of a sharp retort back, his lightheadedness caused him to get straight to the point. "How the hell did you find me?"

Lilith chuckled a little. "We can talk about that later, slacker. Perhaps when you aren't bleeding out in this cesspool." She then glanced over her shoulder as another unexpected visitor flew in perching herself upon the hunter's leather encased shoulder with a shriek. She was covered in blood and gore from her kills.

"There you are… Good girl…" He murmured to the bird, weakly reaching up to stroke her under the chin as Bloodwing crooned a little. He glanced back at Lilith, head swimming, taking a shaky breath, not sure what to say, but opening his mouth all the same.

Lilith held a hand up, stopping him. "Enough talking, let's get you out of here and fixed up. I don't like owing favors to dead people."


End file.
